High school girls soccer: Banner year for Bell
Published 3:36 pm Monday, June 9, 2025
- Brian Bell and daughter, Peyton Bell.
By Mike London
Salisbury Post
LANDIS — South Rowan girls soccer coach Brian Bell has been flooded with accolades in recent weeks.
Region Coach of the Year, South Piedmont Conference Coach of the Year and Rowan County Coach of the Year.
That’s a nice debut.
“Probably should go ahead and retire right now,” Bell said. “Only one way to go.”
Bell is joking.
South (11-9) should be significantly better in 2026 than it was in 2025. South will return nine starters, and has a strong group of freshmen rolling into a South Piedmont Conference that figures to be a lot more friendly for all the Rowan schools with top dog Lake Norman Charter moving out and upper-tier Central Cabarrus moving up.
“We graduated four seniors, two starters, and one of those seniors (Chloe Tracy) was good enough to be recruited by Catawba,” Bell said. “But if girls buy in next year as well as they did this year, we’ll be very competitive.”
A soccer lifer, Bell grew up in Charlotte. His playing background is as a goalkeeper. He competed in high school at Northwest Cabarrus and got permanently inspired by his coach there. He was on the team at UNC Charlotte, although he didn’t get much of an opportunity to get on the field.
“I played in men’s leagues for many years against those same guys I wasn’t good enough to play with in college,” Bell said with a chuckle. “I played soccer until my body started telling me it was time to coach.”
Bell started helping Ellen Howard coach the China Grove Middle School team, and moved over to South Rowan High when his daughter, Peyton, became a freshman player there. He assisted Sarah Meadows.
With Meadows expecting a child near the start of this soccer season, Bell was the leading candidate to step in for her. He went through the application/hiring process at South and got the job. That meant a smooth transition for the Raiders, with the girls already very familiar with Bell.
South won the Rowan Cup, made the 3A playoffs and finished as Rowan’s highest-rated team in the MaxPreps rankings.
“We didn’t have any stars, didn’t have anyone scoring 20 goals,” Bell said. “What we had a lot of girls scoring 8, 9, 10 goals each and we had a good goalkeeper (Margo Maples).”
Bell made tweaks as the season progressed. A key one was moving Brooke Oehler from midfield to the back.
“Brooke is a good player and she really helped our defense,” Bell said. “Everyone wants to score goals, but she didn’t complain. She bought in. She did what was best for her team, and Brooke making that transition allowed us to get (freshman) Avery Rawlings on the field full-time. Avery can be very special. She scored 11 goals in six games.”
Bell’s daughter, Peyton, also made a position switch as a sophomore, from forward to midfield. It went smoothly.
“Just part of the deal,” Bell said. “Peyton did well and had a two-goal game against West Rowan.”
When Bell was in high school, he recalls that Northwest Cabarrus made a run to the state semifinals.
“We beat teams in the playoffs we probably had no business beating, but we always walked out on the field believing we would win,” Bell said. “We want to develop that kind of mentality at South. The goal isn’t to build a good team. The goal is to build a program that is good every year.”